Friday, November 20, 2009

By Lakmal Sooriyagoda - A Colombo Court yesterday allowed the Police to screen on December 3 a video footage of the controversial case where a mentally deranged man was beaten and driven to the sea where he drowned off the Bambalapitiya beach.

Crimes DIG Anura Senanayake told Fort Magistrate Gihan Pilapitiya that the repeated telecast of the man being beaten had given the impression that he had been beaten several times and this had damaged the image of the police department.

He asked that he be permitted to screen the video footage in open court.

On behalf of the TNL TV, Counsel Upul Jayasuriya with Shiraz Noordeen submitted that during the news presentation, the video footage was telecast parallel to the news reading and therefore it had been telecast several times.

On behalf of MTV channels, Counsel Udaya Rohan de Silva with Shiraz Noordeen submitted that MTV channels had not telecast the video in a distorted manner.

Meanwhile, the identification parade to identify the four suspects was postponed to November 20.

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